It is often necessary to secure soft tissues, tendons and ligaments to bone during orthopedic surgical procedures in both human and animal patients. In the past, various devices and methods have been developed to accomplish such soft tissue attachment. In one procedure, the orthopedic surgeon makes large incisions into the soft tissue to expose the bone, drills angled holes through the bone, and then threads the sutures through the holes in order to achieve ligament or soft tissue attachment. This procedure is complex and time consuming.
Due to the difficulties and potential complications associated with the above procedure, alternate devices and methods have been developed. One such device, developed to overcome some of the disadvantages of the above described device and procedures, is a suture anchor. A suture anchor generally comprises an anchor member that is seated within a bone. A suture strand is secured to the anchor member and, thus, is available for assisting the attachment of soft tissues, tendons, and ligaments to the bone. Suture anchors generally require less complex and time-consuming surgical procedures than those associated with earlier methods for attaching soft tissue to bone.
However, there are improvements that can be made to conventional suture anchors and the surgical procedures used to secure the suture anchor and suture to the bone. It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a suture anchor system and a method for securing soft tissues, tendons, and ligaments to bone during orthopedic surgical procedures, the system may include a resorbable suture anchor that may be implanted within bone without having to pre-drill or tap the bone.